12 YOUNG OF THE SCREECH OWL. 



Waring and I make out a list of eleven hawks and five 

 owls that either reside in or visit the Godalming district. 

 The hawks are the osprey or gull-hawk, the sparrow-hawk, 

 the peregrine, the hobby, the merlin, the kestrel, the buz- 

 zard, the honey-buzzard, the moor-buzzard, the hen har- 

 rier, and the ash-coloured harrier; and the owls are the 

 screech-owl, the hooting or tawny owl, the long-horned 

 owl, the short-horned owl and the little horned owl. 



I think I was the first to notice a rather odd family 

 arrangement of the SCREECH OWL, at least it was not 

 known to the bigwigs in these matters about Godalming : 

 it is, that a pair of screech owls will bring up two or three 

 families of owlets at once.* There may be three pairs of 

 owlets, all requiring the attention of the old ones at the 

 same time ; one pair three parts grown, one pair half 



" I have good reason to suspect since, that they may come to us from the west- 

 ward." In' the 37th letter, addressed to Pennant, we find on the authority of 

 that naturalist, that " they are resident in those cold regions the whole year.'' 

 And finally, as a last passage on the subject, I find in the 51st letter, addressed 

 to Daines Barrington, the following inconclusive conclusion. " Hence we may 

 conclude that their migrations are only internal, and not extended to the conti- 

 nent southward, if they do at first come at all from the northern parts of this 

 island only, and not from the north of Europe." E. N. 



* It seems needful to state that this peculiar economy of the screech-owl 

 was noticed hy Mr. Blyth in the * Magazine of Natural History.' " A nest of 

 the ham owl last summer, in this neighbourhood, contained two eggs, and when 

 these were hatched two more were laid, which latter were probably hatched by 

 the warmth of the young birds ; a third laying took place after the latter were 

 hatched, and the nest at last contained six young owls, of three different ages, 

 which are all reared." Mag. Nat. Hist. v. 9. I think the supposition that the 

 eggs of the later broods were hatched by the warmth of the elder owlets, a re- 

 markably good one, since the providing food for such a family must find suffi- 

 cient employment for the old ones. The usual record of ' Natural Histories,' 

 that the barn owl has five or six young ones to a brood, is not borne out by any 

 of the above remarks ; and I can state from actual observation that two is a 

 common number. E. N. 



